1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic device having a housing which contains electronic components and a front part connectable to the housing having control elements and/or a display that is connected to the electronic components in the housing.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic devices having a housing in which electronic components are mounted and a front part with control elements and/or a display that is connected to the electronic components are designed for very diverse purposes. For example, such devices may be a combined instrument for a motor vehicle, a vehicle navigation device or a radio. In such devices, the front part is usually produced separately from the housing and is then connected to the housing. In this case, the front part is often seated in a holder on an instrument panel, i.e., such as the instrument panel of a motor vehicle, and the housing is mounted behind the instrument panel on a support. The required electrical connections are then produced by a multiplicity of mechanical plug connections. This type of connection is relatively expensive, may lead to contact problems and Electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) problems, and requires relatively narrow tolerances. With broader tolerances, a component is often also provided with a plug holder into which a plug attached to a flexible cable of the other component can be inserted manually. Although this type of connection compensates for alignment errors between the housing and the front part, production of the electrical connection requires an additional work step, which may be skipped or forgotten. Furthermore, this solution includes the same problems associated with plug connections.
The object of the present invention is to design an electronic device having a housing with electronic components and a front part with control elements and/or a display such that the front part may be connected to the housing with particularly broad dimensional differences without contact problems.
The object of the present invention is met by arranging a transmitter and a receiver on the front part and arranging a further receiver and a further transmitter on the housing.
The use of transmitters and receivers obviates the need for mechanical connections between the front part and the electronic components in the housing. Since the transmitters and receivers may be arranged directly opposite one another, they require only very low power. Accordingly, the components used therein may be components which are available at low cost. In addition, even relatively broad dimensional differences, in particular a lateral offset, do not result in faults in the connection, since wireless connections generally do not require any alignment accuracy. For use in motor vehicles, it is particularly beneficial that the device according to the present invention is insensitive to vibration due to the lack of mechanical contacts.
The present invention may be implemented using transmitters of any design. Furthermore, it is also possible to connect the electronic components in the housing with the elements of the front part inductively. In a particularly inexpensive embodiment, the electronic appliance the transmitters each have a transmission diode and the receivers each have a reception diode. These types of transmitters and receivers are typically used, for example, in remote controls for television sets or video machines and are therefore manufactured in bulk, thereby ensuring availability at low cost. Since they operate using light, they do not cause electromagnetic faults and are also unaffected by electromagnetic waves.
In a further embodiment, the front part is a component which can be detached from the housing manually, without a tool, for the purposes of antitheft protection. If the device according to the present invention is a car radio, for example, this provides the option for the front part to be removed from the housing and taken along when the vehicle is left, so that the car radio is protected against theft.
Other objects and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. It is to be understood, however, that the drawings are designed solely for purposes of illustration and not as a definition of the limits of the invention, for which reference should be made to the appended claims. It should be further understood that the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale and that, unless otherwise indicated, they are merely intended to conceptually illustrate the structures and procedures described herein.